When you visit our caves and gold mine, you may enjoy some of our above ground activities including gemstone mining and gold panning. These activities are available every day that we are open at Black Chasm Cavern, California Cavern, and Moaning Cavern.

The mining flumes located at Black Chasm Cavern, Moaning Cavern, California Cavern are over 100 feet long and are supplied by water towers that stand 12 feet tall. Our flumes are also suitable for gemstone mining and gold panning. Listed below are the bags we sell for mining . Everything listed under "Gemstone Mining" is mined in our screen bottomed boxes, while gold panning utilizes a gold pan for mining. For younger children who want the thrill of finding gold, but don't have the patience or skill required for gold panning, we highly recommend the Junior Prospector bag which is mined using our screen bottomed boxes.

It's fun, it's easy and there is always a find! The gemstone mining process is an ideal activity for youth groups offering an educational experience while being lots of fun. Your findings will make the perfect start for a collection. If you are a parent, teacher, scout leader, or the head of an organized group, you won't want to pass up this opportunity to do something fun and educational with your kids. To receive a group discount, reserve in advance and pay balances due in one payment.

HOW IT'S DONE

Purchase a bag of prepackaged gemstone "rough."

Work the dirt in the water running through our custom made flumes.

Identify what you find using the gemstone identification display.

Your findings will depend on the kind of bag purchased. Contents of the Junior Prospector bag are listed above. Arrowhead bags contain arrowheads. Mixed gem bags contain a variety of the possible gemstones listed at left.

GOLD PANNING

All of the gold panning bags we sell contain a mixture of dirt and real gold in the quantities listed in the table above. Each comes with a vial in which to keep your "finds."They must all be mined using gold pans.

HOW IT'S DONE

Simply pour your dirt mixture into the gold pan and swirl gently in the water of our mining flumes. Gradually the dirt will rinse away and the heavier gold will remain in the pan.

This technique requires more patience than mining through our screen bottomed boxes, which is why we recommend the Gold Prospector bag for small children.